The clarity of the grass is telling of where the focus is. The exposure should be set to meter on the dog itself. Meaning, the peg lining up on or about on the center tick in this photo.

1/5000 ƒ/2.8 ISO 160 200 mm

The WB is off on this photo (it was super hard to balance in my yard in vegas, so much red!) but you can see it's hard for me as well with a moving white dog to balance properly. Many variables to keep in mind. Her shoulder by the vest is over exposed slightly.

Wow, huge thanks Adrienne for the fantastic posts and explanation!! I've done a bit of reading here and there on adjusting aperture, shutter speed, ISO, exposure, etc. but learn most of the little I know from experimentation. Being able to see quality photos and their settings REALLY help - I stalk Flickr's all the time and look up the information on photos that I especially like for the depth of field or clarity or brightness or whatnot.

I actually spent an entire afternoon just taking pictures of Trent in manual mode about two days ago (and dropped a blanket on him to keep the photos interesting LOL) and was pleasantly surprised by how much more I preferred the photos to what I had in Automatic or even Aperture Priority. A lot of them I'd actually be okay with posting SOOC, which happens about never with pictures taken in Auto.

I also had to take pictures for a friend last month at an indoor sports event, and could only use Manual to get any amount of consistency. Indoor + sports = a GREAT learning experience!! My first time shooting in Manual and I was bumping ISO, aperture, and shutter speed up and down to compensate for the awful conditions. Plus, the sun moving around didn't help, either, and I was running around finding and following the light.

Hmmm....do you suppose it's just me not focusing properly? Yes autofocus is on (both on the camera and the lens). I get stuff like this a lot.

Still shots are usually fine

I will admit I stupidly dropped the camera bag last year (with camera in it)...and I really need to bring it to someone, because the picture is off. If you focus at something, it will appear normal in the VF, and then when you see the picture, it's actually down a pretty significant amount. So I've learned to compensate for it...but I wonder if it's messing up the focus.
Like this...I probably shot straight at him, and this came out...

A drop can definitely alter the AF ability, it possibly slowed it, but because it appears to work in stills I assume it has more to do with a trouble with tracking the shot. Are you using the "grab any point" setting?

For example, the default is "all" which means the camera will guess for you what to put in focus, this is often not what you're seeking. Like I want the eyes in focus most often but my camera is rarely that smart. Autoselection isn't an issue with a deep DOF (ie f/14) but shallow DOFs (ie f/2.8) will be effected by this selection.
Controlled here on some models, controlled on the screen in others
But I suggest doing this
It allows you to do this
Images borrowed from here, more explanation found on this page: http://tutorials.lifeinedit.com/tuto...ng-auto-focus/

Not to hijack, but for basic dog and kid pics, would I be better off with a 55-200 lens or a 50/1.8? I'm not sure if the lack of zoom option would be an issue or not on the 50 mm?

/hijacking over, sorry

50mm is usually kept for still work. You must "foot zoom" and this can be difficult when you need to take a photo of a moving object quickly. I think it is a fantastic lens and very versatile. Right now it's a whoopin 92 dollars on B&H (see previous post) so I really recommend it but it may not satisfy all of your desires.

I prefer a standard 24-70mm and 70-200mm or 80-300mm but the later can be very heavy and cumbersome for basic photography. I find my 24-70 lacks distance but it is light enough for my damaged hands and wrists to stabilize yet offers up plenty for portrait and action.

Not to hijack, but for basic dog and kid pics, would I be better off with a 55-200 lens or a 50/1.8? I'm not sure if the lack of zoom option would be an issue or not on the 50 mm?

/hijacking over, sorry

I'm not experienced in photography at all (just got my DSLR 6 months ago) so I'm not sure how much my opinion is worth, but I'd take the 50mm any day of the week. I take pictures of dogs and kids and the 50mm hardly ever leaves my camera, although I personally stick to portraits rather than action shots when it comes to kids. In fact, the biggest obstacle I come across is the fact that the 50mm can be too close of a crop on my D90 (DX) - but, again, I only take portraits and therefore kids running out far from me never becomes an issue.

Here is a picture I took recently and only just uploaded a few minutes ago. Impromptu picture of my "niece" right after her bath - forgive the terrible crop job:

I'm with Grace, I loooove my 50mm. I mean, that may be because it's what I have so I had to learn but I find I get pretty decent action shots that I'm consistently pretty happy with.

It can be a pain because I have to anticipate a lot of the action that will happen so that I can be in the correct spot because of the lack of zoom. And that really does get annoying sometimes and also puts me dead center in the danger zone For pictures of them in the water I am in the water with my camera.

But overall if I had to have one lens it would be the 50. The versatility from portraits to action to indoor to outdoor is great, as is how small and light it is. Huge plus when carting it around.